What's Past is Prologue
by ncfan
Summary: Tsunade wonders if she has created a monster. Tsunade, Sakura.


Personally, I absolutely hate how Sakura is always compared to Tsunade. I like that Sakura has some personal strength now, but I don't like the fact that she seems to be emphasizing that it was only the arrival of *one* person and one event (her training under Tsunade) that gave her strength, when it was really a whole series of people and events that lent her strength. And Tsunade isn't exactly what I would term a good role model; Sakura should be her own person, not Tsunade's shadow.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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When Tsunade first noticed how much like her Sakura was getting, she wasn't proud, or even satisfied.

She was shocked, and scared.

She didn't know why the concept of Sakura being like her shocked her so much. Tsunade had taught Sakura how to heal and how to blow holes in stone walls with her fists. She'd taught her how to make poisons and break infections. All that was intentional. Tsunade had meant to make Sakura her second protégé in medical ninjutsu, and had meant to teach her just about everything she knew in medical ninjutsu.

Sakura was only one of two students Tsunade ever took on. Tsunade chose Sakura and Shizune based on what she saw as enormous potential; neither one of them had peaked in their skills yet. Sakura showed more potential than anyone in her generation, let alone her graduating class, and Tsunade had trained herself to pick up on potential.

Tsunade didn't know why she was so shocked that Sakura was becoming a mirror image of her, but she did know _exactly_ why it frightened her.

She first started noticing some less than flattering similarities when she realized how hard Sakura was pushing Naruto to bring their idiot teammate home. Tsunade noticed how much Sakura tended to use Naruto, use him when he was convenient and throw him away when he wasn't.

Jiraiya was distinctly unimpressed.

_Jiraiya snarled as he watched Sakura tear Naruto a new one. Then he turned to Tsunade. "Congratulations, slug princess. You've managed to turn the girl into a mirror image of yourself. Pretty, smart, and a completely manipulative bitch too. Does she go on drinking binges and gamble her savings away, too?"_

It would have been all too easy to write off Shizune's reaction as jealousy. It would have been easy to understand why Shizune might have been jealous of Sakura; the younger girl had somehow seamlessly pushed into Shizune's place, and it was as though the older kunoichi had never been there at all.

But as natural as it was for people to indulge their vices, jealousy wasn't one Shizune tended to express. So what she had said wasn't so easy to dismiss.

_Shizune cast a sad look to Tsunade's preoccupied expression. "What happened?" Tsunade asked, confused. "When did _that_ happen? She's completely out of control."_

"_Tsunade-sama…" Shizune trailed off as she struggled to find the appropriate words. "When we make someone over in our image, we often don't like what we see, because we're being forced to face our own failings and flaws. And we especially don't like it because we're facing it in something _we_ created."_

Somewhere along the line, Tsunade had inadvertently taught Sakura a bit more than she had intended. Along with medical ninjutsu and monstrous strength, Tsunade had taught Sakura how to be irrational and how to twist someone's heart in brutal fashion. She had taught Sakura how to be petty and how to be cruel towards those she loved.

In that respect at least, it was clear who was the _real_ heir to Tsunade's "skills".

Tsunade sat at her desk, rubbing her temples in the aftermath of a violent drinking binge, wondering if she had created a monster, and if it was too late to set things right.

Her own flaws and vices had torn apart the lives of those around her. Tsunade knew how much her actions had hurt Jiraiya, Minato, Shizune and Sarutobi-sensei at one point or another; she knew how much her running away was still hurting those who lived still. Tsunade had drawn to her a multitude of ghosts, some of the dead and some of the living, whom she had wronged, and it would only be a matter of time before Sakura did too, if she continued down Tsunade's lone path.

There was something else too, something darker. Tsunade was watching her own ugliness live on in another person; it was like a contagious disease that she had given over to Sakura, as it blackened the girl's heart as it had hers.

Sakura manipulated Naruto to try to bring Sasuke home.

Tsunade had long ago manipulated Jiraiya to try to bring Orochimaru home.

And in both cases, it had ended the same way. All the stones were set in place for there to be as great a disaster for Team Seven as it had been for the Sannin, and Tsunade couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before.

The past repeated itself, and Tsunade was afraid that she had only contributed to the cycle. The girl Sakura had been was being consumed by what Tsunade had molded her into, and Tsunade was at some level horrified by what she had created. The worst part was that she couldn't stop it.

And the price Tsunade paid for her mistake would be to look into Sakura's face every day, and wonder—no, she would _know_—what she could have done differently.

There is a saying: What's past is prologue. And Tsunade wishes it wasn't.


End file.
